Immigration Photos
Low-Resolution Immigration Photos
A low-resolution immigration photo is a common case: a tiny contact print, a wallet photo, a heavy crop or a scan made at 72 dpi years ago leaves blocky pixels, mushy skin and faces the size of a fingernail that fall apart when enlarged, and immigration photos from the 1890s to 1950s were rarely stored well enough to escape it.
Face Restoration is the tool for low-resolution immigration photos: it targets blocky pixels, mushy skin and faces the size of a fingernail that fall apart when enlarged and leaves the rest of the immigration photo alone. Output follows the shape of the upload, so the luggage tags, the clothing and any writing on the back end up where they always were in the low-resolution original.
Scan the low-resolution immigration photo flat, or photograph it and run Photo-of-a-Photo Fixer first, so the low resolution is the only thing left to repair. The immigration photos come back in seconds, and the 4 free credits on sign-up cover the first Standard pass at the low resolution.


Original on the left, restored on the right; hover to see more of the repair. Made in the Studio from a scan of the print.
What matters for these photos
- The luggage tags, the clothing and any writing on the back, hidden under the low resolution
- Low resolution from a tiny contact print, a wallet photo, a heavy crop or a scan made at 72 dpi years ago, on immigration photos from the 1890s to 1950s
- Small faces of a family at the dock, at a ship rail or in the doorway of a first home in a new country that the low resolution has taken the detail from
- Low-resolution immigration photos that a copy shop refused to touch
Suggested order of passes
- 01
Remove the low resolution
Face Restoration targets blocky pixels, mushy skin and faces the size of a fingernail that fall apart when enlarged while keeping the luggage tags, the clothing and any writing on the back in the immigration photo untouched.
Face Restoration - 02
Repair the rest of the immigration photo
Scratch & Tear Repair addresses the usual wear on immigration photos, prints that crossed an ocean in a trunk, creased, water-marked and rubbed through at every fold, once the low resolution is gone.
Scratch & Tear Repair - 03
Upscale the immigration photo for reprinting
Adds the pixels a wall print needs after the low resolution repair, with the shape of the low-resolution immigration photos unchanged.
Image Upscaler
This subject, by damage type
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